One of our readers forwarded an email they received from Lorely Burt MP today. It reads

Dear ,

The Liberal Democrats are a party of business. Tonight Nick Clegg is giving a speech to a group of business leaders, to highlight just that.

Nick will say that the Liberal Democrats are determined to put the private sector at the heart of a strong, rebalanced economy.

As a former entrepreneur myself, this rings true with me – because since coming into Government, our party has been promoting British business in lots of ways:

giving shareholders new powers

pushing employee ownership

taking action to open up more boardrooms to more women

Good grief. If the party big-wigs really think that any of the above measures have helped “promote” British business, then we are in serious, serious trouble. We hope Nick’s speechwriters are more in tune with what business actually wants (rather than forced upon them) than this email seems to suggest.

Laughingly the email invites business people to answer a survey “Listening to Business”. Having read the above email and been reminded of the new regulations that the Liberal Democrats have played a significant hand in forcing upon business it seems unlikely that many will actually feel minded to complete the survey.

So to let you know, the survey consists of asking the following: name, email, phone number, address, business sector, turnover – oh plus one question “If there were one thing the Government could do the help your Business, what would it be“.

How about delivering on the coalition promises of 2010? A “bonfire of red tape”; Removing existing regulation that unnecessarily impedes growth; Introducing new regulation only as a last resort; Reducing the overall volume of new regulation; Improving the quality of the design of new regulation; Reducing the regulatory cost to business and civil society groups; Moving to a risk-based enforcement regime where inspections are minimised etc

So far the Lib Dem’s promotion of UK business has been lamentable. Nothing here suggests it is going to get any better, any time soon.